AUKUS Maritime Innovation Challenge 2025
Trilateral international maritime defence challenge, focused on undersea Command, Control and Communications.
Opportunity Details
When
Registration Opens
01/04/2025
Registration Closes
28/04/2025
Award
Up to $8 million (US) total funding. Together, UK, AUS and US are expecting to fund 3-10 proposals.
Organisation
DASA
This challenge for AUKUS Pillar II is focused on undersea Command, Control and Communications.
This is a trilaterally agreed challenge and will utilise a harmonised competition process with individual submissions entered into one of the three AUKUS partners’ individual submission portals (Australia, United Kingdom and United States). The challenge is being run as a two-stage competition across the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator (ASCA) in Australia, the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) in the United Kingdom and the Defence Innovation Unit (DIU) in the United States.
Terms and conditions for the competition have been harmonised as far as possible across the three nations but it should be appreciated that individual AUKUS partners have separate national requirements for awards.
This competition is open to submissions from any nation in Stage 1. The total funding available is up to $8 million (US). Together, UK, AUS and US are expecting to fund 3-10 proposals.
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There are no restrictions on organisations that can submit into Stage 1 of the challenge. Large organisations, small organisations and academic organisations are all permitted to take part. Collaborations are also possible between organisations. We do ask that there is one lead partner with whom any resultant contract will be made, and they subcontract any work undertaken by the other parties.
Although there is no absolute restriction on the nationality of organisations it is a requirement of the competition that respondents are in a position to supply their technology to any of the 3 AUKUS nations.
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Contract start month: aim to start November 2025. Project duration: 12 months. Final deliverable is to be a demonstration at an appropriate multinational maritime exercise, achieving minimum TRL6 (Technology model or prototype demonstration in a relevant environment).
The total funding available is up to $8 million (US). Together, UK, AUS and US are expecting to fund 3-10 proposals. The funding can cover all eligible costs (detailed in the FAQs).
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Autonomous systems can provide operational advantage in all environments from seabed to space. The waters of a nation’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) stretch 200 nautical miles (NM) from the coastline; they include environmental features such as seaweed, incidental features such as drifting containers, and interception features such as fishing nets. There is also the presence of critical undersea infrastructure, which has strategic interest. Sensing, interpreting, and navigating the environment are fundamental to an autonomous platform’s ability to operate safely, efficiently, and effectively.
Capability Challenges/Effects
AUKUS partners are seeking to research and develop innovations to enable the synchronisation and teaming of multiple undersea systems. We invite innovations that enable some or all of the following Desired Capability Effects:
- Provide near real time communications between Undersea Vehicles (UVs)
- Provide near real time communications from UVs to Command and Control (C2) Systems /Battle Management System (BMS)
- Provide near real time communications between seabed systems to UVs and C2 System and BMS
- Provide a system that can optimally allocate the right asset to the right task in a dynamic and complex environment
- Provide optimal bandwidth utilisation and effective range, and perform in a contested/congested environment
For full details of technical and functional requirements, view the competition document.
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A supporting launch Webinar run by each of the three AUKUS partners was scheduled for 3 April 2025. A copy of the slides and recording will be available shortly after the event.
DASA (UK) can be contacted on accelerator@dstl.gov.uk.
For further help, you can also contact Innovate UK Business Connect’s Defence and Security team.